


Impact

by Morningstar96



Category: own work - Fandom
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-27 19:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16226207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morningstar96/pseuds/Morningstar96
Summary: This is the first chapter of my own story, not a fanfic. Basically, a zoology student finds a crash-landed alien while on a field trip, and shenanigans ensue. hope you like!





	1. Chapter 1

 

‘What the hell…?’

Harper Montoya approached the meteor site. Smoke rose in ghostly columns from the crater in the forest, and the nearby trees and undergrowth had been blown sideways or completely uprooted from the impact. She could glimpse the gentle flicker of flames low in the crater, could feel the heat rippling in waves through the chilly forest air. Excitement prickled at her chest. She was on a field trip with her Ancient Fauna class at Connetquot River State Park Preserve, where they’d recently built a facility where local palaeontologists could examine ancient megafauna fossils in peace. When the meteor struck near their camp fifteen minutes ago, everyone had erupted into chaos, excited by the unexpected event. Their tutors had ordered them to stay in camp and not go out to investigate, but Harper took advantage of the excitement to sneak out and do just that. She was studying zoology, dammit; that meant she had the curiosity of every other budding scientist on this field trip, and since she’d done a couple of geology courses last year, then of course she’d check out this rogue meteor. Maybe she’d find some strange metal unknown to science hidden in the space-rock.

But as she crept to the edge of the crater, careful where she placed her feet in the darkness lest she slipped over the edge, she sensed something was… _wrong._ Amidst the orange glow of the dying fires was a pattern of steady gold light, and as Harper’s eyes adjusted to the painful juxtaposition of bright light and night-time darkness, she realised the glowing golden pattern was on some large, dark object. She assumed it was the meteor at first- maybe the golden streaks were just lines of molten rock on the meteor- but it all looked too smooth. She blinked, and something in her brain clicked.

It was a ship.

Harper stayed still as a tree for a moment, trying to comprehend the fact that she was definitely looking right at a space ship. She hesitated, took a steadying breath, and skidded down the slope and into the crater. The smell of burning earth filled her nose, but the little fires were already sputtering out, their dying embers illuminating the sleek black metal of the ship’s exterior. The golden pattern on the ship simply seemed to be for the aesthetic. There was a window in the front, tinted so dark that Harper could barely see through it.

_It’s a pod,_ she realised, _not a ship._

Perhaps some astronaut had had to evacuate a ship in an emergency, and landed here in this escape pod.

_Or maybe it’s an alien,_ she thought, then immediately scolded herself. _You’re a scientist, Harper. Any aliens in our solar system are probably just microscopic amoeba and bacteria, not members of full-fledged extra-terrestrial civilisations._

As if of their own accord, her feet took her closer to the sleek pod. Her heart pounded somewhere in her throat; if there’d been an emergency on a ship orbiting earth, then it would have been all over the news, with rescue teams out everywhere to search for escape pods. But she’d never seen a pod of this design before; as she examined the rear of the pod, she found a series of spiky glyphs she didn’t recognise as from any human language she knew.

_This is exactly how they found Superman,_ she thought nervously. _Am I gonna have to raise an alien baby with godlike superpowers? Is that what will happen?_

She was eighteen years old, dammit. She wasn’t ready to play foster parent to alien progeny. She was about to walk away and never return, but then something disturbed the patch of sky she could see through the blown-apart canopy around her. Her heart clenched. More streaks of fire blazing through the night, hurtling at full speed- Harper through they would crash land as well, but instead, the barely-visible objects- actual small ships this time, judging from how they moved- came to a standstill, hovering in the air before virtually vanishing in the darkness. She’d counted three of them before she lost sight of them all. Definitely aliens, she decided, though her common sense begged her to think otherwise. Then her common sense whispered, _If inhumans like me can exist, then so can aliens._

_Well that was ominous,_ she thought, tugging at her belt and pulling out her favourite dagger. She was perfectly aware that aliens who’d perfected the art of space travel would likely have far better weapons than her dagger, but if it came to a fight, then maybe she’d be able to send one or two aliens down with her.

Harper made to clamber back out of the crater again, but then she suddenly found the crater surrounded by tall, looming figures. She freaked out, her body freezing stiff as she comprehended their very alien silhouettes and the strange, faintly glowing guns strapped to their bodies. Harper’s muscles kicked back into action and she fled for cover beneath a fallen tree, hoping that these slender eight-foot-tall aliens had bad night vision and didn’t see her.

This was the last night of their field trip. Harper had been digging through trays of soil containing the bones of thirteen-thousand-year-old rodents and reptiles, collected data from said bones, examined the skeleton of a giant American Lion, stolen an American Lion fang she’d found in her tray of ancient reptile bones, and was beginning to prepare a report on her research on her bones. An alien invasion hadn’t exactly been on the trip’s to-do list. She watched, soundless, as the aliens leapt nimbly into the crater and surrounded the small pod, speaking to each other in an almost sing-song language. Their eyes were huge and dark- signs that they did, in fact, have good night vision. Their fingers were long and slender, their bodies lean and lithe as those of cheetahs. From her not-exactly-ideal vantage point beneath the fallen aspen tree, Harper could see that their skin was covered in fine scales, ranging through each individual from rust-red of jet black. Their mouths were lined with heat-sensing pits, and forked tongues flickered from their snake-ish mouths to taste the air. Some individuals were bulkier, and had small horns on their head; if these aliens followed the typical sexual dimorphism presented by earthly snakes, then the big horned ones would be the females. She counted fourteen of them. Harper watched as the six biggest and meanest were sent to close in around the pod, guns raised and hissing something that sounded aggressive. Obviously they didn’t like whatever was in the pod. Was it an escaped prisoner, perhaps? Harper tried to decide whose side she was on- the snake-guys, or whoever was in the pod. And then there was a sudden chaos of explosions as they let loose on the pod, strange bullets ricocheting off the alien metal; Harper screwed her eyes shut as soil flew around everywhere at the impact of bullets.

And then she felt hot breath on her face, and a dark forked tongue pressing against her forehead. She opened her eyes and found herself face to face with a snake-alien. Harper stifled a scream and backed out from under the tree, nerves pounding as she scrambled to her feet and ran- she knew that with those long legs the alien would be upon her before she could even draw her dagger, that her class would come here in the morning and find her body torn in half- and then something happened. A screech of metal upon metal pierced the air, and she glanced back to find the pod opening up of its own accord. But there was no time to stop and watch - the snake-guy was still after her, hissing wide enough to expose long, glittering fangs, and Harper was all too willing to comply with his warning to go away. Then there was a guttural scream, and something jumped out of the pod with extraordinary force- the snake-guys shot again, screeching what sounded like insults, and the pod-user landed on the ground with enough force to knock Harper off her feet. She glanced back again as she scrabbled to climb the crater edge; her breath caught. She lost her footing and skidded back in, awed by what she saw before her.

_She’s a god,_ was her first thought. And then: _Crap, she’s going to kill me!_

The goddess landed half a foot in front of her, the ground shuddering upon impact and almost making Harper fall right into her arms. Harper temporarily stopped breathing when their eyes met- her solid amber to the goddess’ pure, flat silver. There were no pupils, no whites. Just all silver, like moons captured within her fierce, regal face. She looked quite human otherwise, with long black hair tied back in a thick braid, and a proud Roman nose.

The moment was gone when the snake-guys suddenly swarmed around them, guns at the ready. The goddess snarled, exposing teeth that seemed slightly larger and stronger than a normal human’s, and pivoted into a defensive position with hands stretched out. It was then that Harper noticed she had retractable cat-like claws instead of nails at her fingertips.

_Get a grip and help her fight,_ Harper snapped at herself, turning around and putting herself back to back with the stranger. But before the snake-guys could shoot, the goddess suddenly whipped around, grabbed Harper around the waist, and jumped straight out of the crater. Harper hadn’t even had time to yelp in surprise; but she managed to duck as streams of bullets hailed around them, sending clumps of earth flying in the air- Harper bit back a scream, terror flooding her system- she did not want to die like this, she had to get back into the city tomorrow- the goddess let loose another scream of anger, and launched herself at the nearest snake-guy. That gave Harper the chance to skid across the leaf litter and hide behind a broad maple, mind frantically scrambling for some way she could help. She’d literally brought a knife to a gunfight. A very bad situation, regardless of how you look at it. Her only thought was Plan F, and that was an incredibly bad plan that she would not allow herself to consider.

_Come on, Harper, think-_

She watched as the goddess proceeded to destroy the snake-guys, piling them at her feet. Was she bullet-proof? Harper figured she must be, or else she’d have been hit already. Still. She wanted to help this mysterious stranger. She studied the remaining snake-guys, and figured that she could use her smaller size against them. Urged on by what she assumed was pure stupidity, or some ridiculous desire to impress the stranger, she ran into the fight and began stabbing right, left and centre at every patch of scaly skin she saw. Green blood flowed from the wounds. She stabbed faster and harder than she ever had in combat practice, knowing she had to pierce the thick scales, and learning very quickly to sink the dagger into the strips of skin between each scale- and suddenly, it was all over. A pile of snakey bodies lay around them, some dead, others barely breathing. Harper was breathing harder than she ever had from pure shock. The goddess stood rigidly before her, her face expressionless as they gazed at each other. Harper broke eye contact and scanned the stranger.

‘You’re hurt,’ she said faintly, watching bright red blood seep from a number of wounds all across her body.

The stranger stepped forward, frowning slightly. She was taller than Harper by about three inches, making her a full six feet tall. The sleeve on her right arm had torn off completely, revealing a strong biceps. Harper shivered slightly when they were practically nose-to-nose. It was impossible to read those fierce silver eyes.

Harper remained still as she reached up and touched her throat, her cheeks, her lips. The stranger’s fingertips were rough to the touch yet grazed her skin gently, sending gooseflesh rippling in their wake. Harper had the vague realisation that she was taking something from her- her _language,_ she realised, feeling the alien absorb her knowledge of English.

‘Harper Rose Montoya.’ She said the words slowly, rolling them on her tongue as if the sounds were foreign to her. Her voice was low and rough, a hint of a growl behind every word. If she’d been human, Harper might have pinned her accent as Russian.

Harper’s throat caught, and she found that she couldn’t speak. Had the stranger taken her ability to form her own words? But then she managed, ‘Yes. Yes, I am Harper Montoya. And who are you?’ She tried to speak as clearly as possible, yet it was difficult with her heart still pounding in her throat.

The alien frowned again, flexing out an arm and studying it as if she’d never really seen it before. ‘Valaar,’ she said. ‘In your tongue, I believe it translates to _Mercy.’_

‘Valaar. Okay, Valaar. Uhm, what exactly is happening here?’

Valaar scowled and gestured at the pile of prone bodies around them. ‘They invaded my planet and enslaved us. They brought me on a ship to sell me to someone on this planet, but I sneaked off on an escape pod. Unfortunately, they noticed.’

It was then that Harper saw the old scars on the alien’s exposed arm, and a long, thin scar running from the bottom of her right eye down her cheek. Pity plucked at Harper’s heart, though judging from Valaar’s stern face, she doubted a show of sympathy would be appreciated.

‘Alright. You… want to come back to my camp site? I’m sharing a cabin, but I might be able to hide you somewhere.’

Valaar gave her the strangest look. And then she began to tremble, her breathing becoming laboured- at first Harper thought she might be reacting badly to the atmosphere of a new planet, but then tears started running down her face and she realised that this powerful, tough-as-a-lion alien was completely distraught.

‘Hey, it’s alright,’ Harper soothed, instinctively reaching out to steady Mercy by the shoulders. ‘You can stay with me awhile, then decide what to do next.’

She could feel Valaar trembling, the hard mask of her face dropping to expose a vulnerability that Harper felt humbled to witness. Valaar steadied herself with a shuddering breath, nostrils flaring, and bared her teeth. ‘I cannot go home.’

Harper nodded. ‘Understandable. But you look pretty much human, you can fit in here.’

Valaar looked around slowly, her eyes flashing as she took in the scenery for the first time. It was dead silent except for the breath of the wind and the screech of a nearby barn owl. They could see a patch of sky in the canopy above them; the clouds parted, revealing a full moon. Valaar started unblinkingly at it, the silver of her eyes reflecting the moonlight perfectly.

‘That is your moon?’ she said slowly.

‘Yeah, it is.’

‘She is beautiful.’

‘Yeah, she is.’

Harper coughed awkwardly and stepped away from the bodies. ‘I saw, like, three ships before you burst out of that pod. More of these guys will be after you.’

Valaar grimaced. ‘I know. Is there an extra-terrestrial embassy on this planet?’

Harper blinked. ‘Uh, not really. I mean, I could take you NASA, but… we don’t really get aliens here, and there’s a shit-ton of movies about alien invasions where we all get killed or whatever. You might not get a great reception.’

There was a moment of mutual silence broken only by another shrill shriek from the barn owl. Valaar seemed to be listening intently, so still that she could be a statue. ‘I hear more D’nari. We must move.’

‘D’nari?’ Harper echoed. ‘The snake-guys?’

Valaar’s only response was to move, ghosting over the leaf litter as if she’d been in stealth mode her entire life. After a couple of minutes, Harper found the hiking trail she’d used to get into the woods, and took the lead from there. Valaar followed her without question, apparently deciding that using a human as her guide was her best move. Soon, the camp came into view. Despite the late hour, the uni students had kept the campfire blazing and were celebrating their last camp night with the alcohol they’d been told not to bring here under any circumstances. She felt Valaar tense as they approached.

‘What are they doing?’ she said, watching them warily.

‘Partying.’ Harper opened the gate and gestured Valaar inside. ‘Come on. My cabin-mates are all at the campfire, so we’ll sneak into my cabin and find someplace for you to hide.’


	2. Moon

Valaar was used to doing things alone. Learning how to survive by herself had guaranteed her survival, and she’d become used to that. But she was logical enough to know that she needed a guide on this new planet, and this slender, short-haired creature known as Harper would do just fine.

‘You said someone here had bought you as a slave?’ Harper said, turning around and searching her face with striking eyes. Valaar tried not to stare. Those eyes were a small black circle ringed by a vivid amber circle, set in a background of white. So strange, but very expressive.

‘Yes. The first… _human…_ to contact the D’nari and request a part of the slave trade.’ Valaar’s tongue kept twisting as she uttered the foreign words. Her people had a gift for absorbing different languages from those who speak it, but she hadn’t exactly had much opportunity to practise that skill.

‘Do you know their name?’

‘No.’

They were in the cabin within a dormitory, similar in style to the camps they’d thrown her people into, to the camp she’d been raised in. But there were enough differences to keep her from being overwhelmed. There was no pervasive stench of fear, the beds were worn but not covered in blood, and the smattering of bags bursting with personal belongings indicated that this was a place meant for temporary visits. Harper rummaged through her own bags, muttering to herself as she did so. She rose with a small, glinting object in her hands. A form of key, perhaps?

‘You hungry?’

The rumble from Valaar’s belly provided the answer.

Harper chuckled. ‘Nice to know aliens need sustenance. Come on, let’s make a midnight feast.’

Valaar had little choice but to follow the lithe human back out of the dormitory and into the chill night air. Valaar opened her mouth a little, tasting the atmosphere on her tongue. It was sharp with the taste of the nearby flora, the smoke of the fire, and Harper’s pleasant scent, and it felt thinner than the air of Nes, her home planet.

Her mind had gone into shock, relying on only her basic instincts to drive her along as the rest of her sank into her subconscious, unwilling to acknowledge recent events. She let herself focus on Harper’s form as they crept across the camp grounds and into a small wooden building. She picked up the scent of food even before Harper used the tiny object to unlock the door. Well, at least she was right about it being a key.

‘I stole it from a tutor,’ she said, flashing a grin before pocketing the key again. The windows were uncovered, and allowed light from the fire to illuminate the interior. It was more than enough for Valaar to see comfortably, but Harper seemed to struggle in the dimness.

‘Your species has weak eyesight?’ Valaar surmised.

Harper shrugged. ‘Our night vision isn’t as good as most other mammals, but our colour vision and general acuity are pretty strong. What about you?’

‘Mammals,’ Valaar echoed. That word had no translation in her native language.

‘Yeah. We’re a family of animals evolved from reptiles. Mammals are divided into placental mammals and marsupials. Us humans are placental mammals, so we grow our babies in internal wombs and have mammary glands to feed them milk when they’re born.’

‘Much like my species,’ Valaar said, nodding. In spite of everything, her curiosity was beginning to flicker. ‘And what makes you different to… marsupials?’

Harper opened a cupboard and began rummaging for food. ‘Marsupials live almost entirely in Australia, though we have a few species down in South America, and there’s a bunch of opossum species right here in North America. Marsupials don’t grow their babies in wombs for very long; the foetuses crawl out and snuggle into exterior pouches, where the teats are.’

Valaar stared, trying to imagine a pouch on her stomach with a barely-formed foetus suckling inside it. ‘That sounds horrible.’

‘Better than giving birth to a fully formed baby.’

Valaar couldn’t argue with that. She’d witnessed birth before, and it had been simultaneously horrific and beautiful.

Harper backed out of the cupboard, her arms full of food. ‘I’m sure they’ll forgive us for eating tomorrow’s breakfast, but whatever. Uh… what do you eat back home?’

‘Not enough,’ Valaar said stiffly.

Harper eyed her critically. ‘Hmm. I suppose you need a lot of food to support all that muscle. Anyway, let’s try you out on a peanut butter sandwich. You’re not allergic to nuts, are you?’

Valaar accepted the peanut butter sandwich wordlessly, palming the square of pale, fluffy-textured food in her hands before taking a cautious bite.

‘How d’you like it?’ Harper said, watching her anxiously.

Valaar chewed, unsure what to think of the strange flavours and sticky texture of the stuff spread between the white squares. ‘It is reminiscent of k’sar,’ she decided, swallowing her bite and taking another, much larger one.

‘You’re eating more of it, so I’ll take that as a good thing.’

Valaar took the last bite and licked her fingertips clean of the peanut butter, already finding herself somewhat addicted to the flavour. The food helped settle her, but she needed more. She glanced up at Harper.

‘Let’s see,’ she said, moving around Valaar and examining her. ‘Looks like you reacted well enough to the sandwich, so it’s safe to say you can eat more stuff.’

‘Fruit?’ Valaar asked, suddenly craving something sweet and light.

‘Oh, yeah. Let’s make a fruit salad. Also- how’re your injuries? You haven’t complained about them, but they look serious.’

Valaar examined the bullet-wounds. Her skin had already ejected the bullets, and the wounds were beginning to shrink into scars. ‘I heal fast.’

There was a strange look in Harper’s face. Valaar identified it as awe. ‘Ah. That’s… that’s very useful.’

 

Another hour passed before the campers filed back into the dormitory.

‘I should head back before they miss me,’ Harper said uneasily. ‘We’ll be leaving for Manhattan in the morning. If you wanna come back with us, meet me at the edge of the woods at dawn.’

And then she left, leaving nothing but the lingering trace of her scent in the air. Valaar took a deep breath, still surprised at how greedily her lungs took in the air of this planet. It felt clean and cool, and as she left the food-building and wandered the campgrounds, the wind picked up and caressed her skin in a cold breeze. She stared up at the stars, scanning for Nes, but that was countless light-years away, and even she couldn’t see that far. But Nes was a god as well as a planet; he lived within her soul.

_Nes, bringer of all good things, hear my prayer. I feel your strength in me, though I am far from your embrace, and I give my love to you. May your wisdom keep me grounded, may your life-soul support millions._

A simple prayer, but it was all Valaar had. She knew this planet must have its own gods, but she carried Nes with her, and she would honour him- just as soon as she recovered from her trip and figured out her next move.

Harper had given her a sleeping bag before she left. Valaar found a large tangle of roots at the base of a large tree, set her sleeping bag amongst the roots, and curled up inside it.

She didn’t get to sleep immediately. She simply stared into space, kept awake by the strange sounds surrounding her, breath taken by the beauty of the bloated full moon gracing the sky above her. She was distracted by a scratching sound accompanied by the steady pattering of numerous tiny heartbeats. And then a strange little animal came into view: a lithe yet well-rounded creature with fuzzy light grey fur and a long, slender muzzle. Its legs and ears were black, its face ghostly white, its nose pink. Its paws and tail were pink and hairless, its eyes black and beady, and a clump of six babies clung to its back, each one a miniature version of the adult. The adult suddenly noticed her and opened its mouth wide, revealing a delicate pink maw lined with tiny, pearly white fangs.

‘Hello,’ Valaar said, keeping her voice soft. She sensed that this animal was no threat; the tiny babies crawling on its back sniffed the air curiously, wondering what had caught their mother’s attention. Valaar still had the long yellow fruit- the _banana-_ that Harper had given her. She peeled it, and offered it to the creature as a peace offering. As the mother crept forward and nibbled at the fruit, one the babies crawled down to her underbelly and suddenly vanished. A pouch, Valaar released, seeing the baby’s tiny form writhe under the mother’s skin. So this was a marsupial. She watched the animal and her babies for a while, then fell into a restless sleep.

 

_Smoke. Destruction. Blood carnage. The ruins of her people spread out before her, her culture’s history and secrets obliterated almost entirely, her people decimated to half their population within five years. The D’nari, the people of the neighbouring planet Jarren, had fallen upon them without warning. Valaar remembered waking up on her tenth birthday to find the grey skies of Nes swarming with D’nari ships. Her city, Kair-za, was abuzz with fear and terror. Valaar’s mother, Jacen, was the city’s priestess of the moon goddess, Ma’alan, and had been called upon by the City Council to reveal Ma’alan’s wisdom on how to deal with the sudden invasion. Valaar hadn’t wanted her mother to leave the house. But Jacen merely slipped on her priestess’s robes and kissed her goodbye._

_‘Do not leave the house until I return,’ she’d told her. ‘We must find out what the D’nari want and attempt to broker peace. Everything will be fine; but for now, you must look after your little brother until my return.’_

_Valaar’s gut had screamed at her to cling to her mother’s robes and keep her in the safety of the house, but Jaceen was a noble priestess. She knew that her mother knew best, and that if she said she’d return, then she would._

_But she never did._

_Valaar had kept her five-year-old brother, Kel, entertained for several hours before she started to grow anxious. Surely Jacen would be back by now._

_And then the front the house was blown open, and the D’nari came, and she knew they were doomed-_

 

Harper woke up with a start. She stared into space, blinking at the sleeping form of her cabin mate in the opposite bunk bed, then the dream she’d just had flashed back to her: the one about the world being swallowed in fire, and the great god Huitzilopochtli swooping down to save her. Harper shivered. She’d been having this dream since last year, and it still made her wake up in a cold sweat.

Harper sat up, running a hand through her hair and shivering in her sleeping bag. She still hadn’t told anyone about the incident. She was too scared even to think about it, but now she did.

Harper had been celebrating her eighteenth birthday at the cinema with her friends. After the movie, they all separated and went their own way home, leaving Harper to wander through Harlem on her own. She was still pleasantly abuzz from her cinema party, and was thinking about visiting a couple of her favourite shops before going home. But she never got to browse Lush or her favoured clothes stores, because a pair of trucks suddenly collided on the street beside her. The resulting blast had thrown her smack against the brick wall of an apartment complex, briefly knocking her out; when she came to, all she saw was red. Searing heat enveloped her, and she knew the trucks were on fire- there was no time to think. Following her basest instincts, she leapt toward the fire and _pulled._ At her will, the flames shuddered. She felt as one with the fire, and hearing the screams of the trapped truck drivers, she knew the fire had to die. At her will, the fire died.

Harper then ran away from the scene, freaking out completely, and that goddamned dream had haunted her ever since.

_Okay, Montoya. Pull yourself together._

She crept out of her sleeping bag, gathered a set of fresh clothes, and stalked out of her room, into the dorm hall, out of the dorm, across the grounds, and into the toilet block. She got ready for the day, and by the time she’d finished, the sky was just beginning to pale in the awakening dawn. Her breath misted the air as she left the campgrounds and arrived at the forest edge a couple of hundred metres from it. She’d told Valaar that she could take shelter in the mess hall, but Valaar had insisted on spending the night outdoors.

‘Valaar?’ she called, straining her eyes to catch any alien movement. Her torchlight illuminated dense branches, birds starting up their morning chorus, a fox staring back at her with flashing eyes.

It took her a few minutes, but she eventually found a sleeping bag. Approaching with caution, she got close enough to identify the sleek, mussed-up black hair of her favourite alien.

Harper grinned, and shone the torch in Valaar’s face. ‘Morning, sunshine.’

Valaar shot up, suddenly very alert and tearing apart the sleeping bag. She stared at Harper uncomprehendingly as a small army of opossum joeys spilled out of the sleeping bag. They hissed and tumbled over each as they fell into Valaar’s lap, clearly not appreciating the rude awakening.

Valaar stared at Harper. Her early-morning expression involved narrowed eyes and a slightly agape mouth, like she was watching the most ridiculous movie of all time.

‘I bought coffee. You’re gonna need it,’ Harper said, offering a takeaway mug of fresh coffee she’d gotten from the mess hall’s vending machine.

Valaar took the coffee and looked down at the baby opossums now brawling loudly in her lap. ‘Marsupial,’ she said.

‘Yeah, they’re marsupials. Specifically, they’re Virginia opossums, and they’re wild animals.’ Harper frowned. ‘Where’s the mother?’

Valaar pointed behind her in the forest. ‘She left the babies with me and went to hunt.’

‘Ah.’

A moment of awkward silence. ‘You’re also gonna need these,’ Harper said, pulling a pair of sunglasses from her pocket, ‘to hide your eyes.’

 

It was surprisingly easy to convince the bus driver that Valaar was simply a homeless Long Island local who wanted to hitch a ride into Manhattan. It had been less easy to convince Valaar that the baby opossums would be fine if left alone, and that their mother would find them in due time.

‘You’re lucky opossums are pretty resistant to rabies,’ Harper told her, eyeing the tiny scratch marks they’d left on Valaar’s exposed arm. ‘Maybe I should get you to a doctor and organise a vaccination program. You’ll probably be vulnerable to any kind of disease around here, and we don’t know what kinda stuff you’re bringing here to us.’

‘I was vaccinated against many Nessian diseases as a child,’ Valaar said, ‘so I doubt I carry any of them to you. But if I must stay here, then I should like to be protected against your diseases.’

‘A trip to the doctor it is, then.’

It was honestly ridiculous how powerful and noble Valaar looked, even when she was in a tattered uniform and sitting on a bus seat.

They entered Manhattan without incident, with Valaar sitting cold and stoic like an ancient Greek statue beside her. Finally, they rolled up into the carpark of the City University of New York’s Hunter College campus.

‘Come on. I have so much to show you…’

 

 

 

 


End file.
